Last week I wrote about the magnificent train station in St. Louis and mentioned that we had just come from an Evensong service at the Episcopal Cathedral when we walked into it.  The AGO, the American Guild of Organists, had descended on the town for their annual meeting, and the Cathedral had to pull all the stops (so to speak) for their musical service.  Five choirs came from around the St Louis area to make a remarkable ensemble of voices that warranted the vast expanses of the cruciform Cathedral. 

     “Evensong” even sounds old.  Started in the mid 1500’s in England, it followed the tradition of Vespers, which started maybe 1000 years before that.  Those early days, and even today, much of the service is chanted.  Chanting doesn’t do that much for me, so the “choral” evensongs are the ones that catch my attention, and my heart.  If you haven’t been to one, you should go.    

For this particular Evensong, every Scripture reading, of which there were many, ended with the person reading the Bible verses saying, “Hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to God’s people.”  Then the congregation responded by saying “Thanks be to God.”  Yes, this mimics what we say when the Scriptures are read here at First Boca.  The reader finishes the Bible verses and says “This is the Word of God, for the people of God” after which we all say, “Thanks be to God.”  I like that response because it reminds us that what was just read was not some teaching or story from the preacher or somebody in the church, it came directly from the Bible.  We understand that these words come from God’s perfect will, not from some benevolent human thought.  And the reader focuses the text on those of us who are listening – the word of God FOR the people of God (the listeners). 
            

But then came this variation.  I found the variation helpful on a couple of levels.  For one, it disrupted my routine.  The repetitive nature of what we say can diminish its impact.  “The Word of God, for the people of God” can become just a verbal prompt for us to blurt out “Thanks be to God” rather mindlessly. 
            

So, the reader there in St. Louis followed the Biblical text with “Hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to God’s people.”  The first time this happened, I wasn’t following along with the bulletin.  So, it caught me off-guard when suddenly everyone around me all cried out “Thanks be to God.”  I scooted to the back of the church and asked the usher for a bulletin so I would be ready this time.  Now, when they read from the book of Acts, I was ready.  This time, when I heard “Hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to God’s people” I could respond confidently “Thanks be to God!” 

              But I had to think about it.  What did I just affirm?  What was I saying about this Scripture?  The reader commanded us to listen to what was just read as words that the Holy Spirit– that God Himself–was speaking to us.  This became a faith statement.  The reader announced to all of us there that, regardless of what Scripture was read, we understood it as an instrument of the Holy Spirit to talk to us humans.  That Scripture was the Father speaking to His children.  That Scripture was the Son speaking to humankind.  That Scripture was the Holy Spirit, God’s presence in the world today, addressing me.  And it was meet and right to respond to that idea with “Thanks be to God!” 

That’s why you will find in today’s bulletin this response after all the readings.  It is not our new tradition – I just want to give you the same interruption to the routine so that we will appreciate the inspiration of today’s text.  In his second letter to Timothy, Saint Paul said: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living (2 Timothy 3:16).  I think this is true.  ALL Scripture, every bit of it, is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is useful for us.  I invite you to listen to the Word of God this morning, and to say with conviction, “Thanks be to God!” 

 Reveling in the Word, 

Craig 

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.  James 1:17 (NLT) 

                         The old St. Louis train station boasts some of the most remarkable architecture you’ve even seen. It’s not the biggest station, but close, second only to Grand Central Station in NYC. Majestic, like other stations (shoutout to Cincinnati and Buffalo and even Macon, GA), you just can’t help but marvel at how big the thing was.

​    I say “was” because, like the Chattanooga “Choo Choo” station, it’s now a hotel (and a fair, and a lake, and an eatery extravaganza). But the stained glass window as long as a house still graces the wall above the massive staircase entering the main hall.That, in turn, demands your attention upward towards the vaulted ceilings that soar 65 feet in the air. A painting of the trains arriving at the Mississippi is as big as the side of our church.

​    That train station was the largest train station in the world when it was built in 1894. I can’t imagine what an old farmer, riding to St. Louis for the first time would have thought walking up those grand staircases into that magnificent space. When I walked in, I had just come from a choral Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral a few blocks away.  Aided by the American Guild of Organists that Sunday, it was a glorious hour of divine music. So I walked into that great hall and mentioned to my younger son what that hall would sound like with a big organ. (I even suggested that they should move the Wanamaker organ in Philly’s old Macy’s building there, after all, it started out there!)

​    The idea of a huge organ playing in that hall would be overwhelming. Overwhelming in volume, too; but I think spiritually that hall is a prompt for the imagination to ponder heaven. That old farmer, coming from one world (the farm) into another (the splendor of the station) is a reminder that all of us will board a proverbial train (does the spiritual “This Train” come to mind?), and that what we are headed for is better than what is here. I can’t imagine.

    ​I can tell you that the ticket on that train costs less than what trains cost today (which seems expensive to me) and even less than what the old farmer paid back in the day. It’s free. The invitation God offers for us is free. Not cheap, as we have been reminded by Bonhoffer, but indeed free.

​What train are you on, pilgrim?

Still thinking about the station,

Craig

“The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” — Psalm 121:8 (NIV)

                           In a long line of preschoolers sitting on the sidewalk waiting for their parents to come pick them up, a seemingly random (to a bystander anyway) woman walks by the group, stops, puts her hand out, and up pops a little arm and hand to meet hers. Mom tugs a little at her son to get him and his bag up, and hand in hand they walk off to the parking lot. Another successful day at preschool. 

There is something very tender about that moment. Of all the lined-up children, beautiful and wonderful as they may be, this mom picked one. And by reaching out her hand, she claimed this one, this particular one as her own. I couldn’t see it, but I’m sure they first locked their eyes and smiled. And, of all the other women walking by that morning, teachers and aides and other moms, this boy reached out his hand, signaling that she was his mom. As they walked away, they held hands, a wonderful expression (if you can remember this back in your day) of belonging to each other. The mom reached out and said, “this is my son,” and the son reached out, expressing that she belonged to him, too. 

Someday, 10 or so years from now, that little boy will be a teenager, out on a first date, nervous as can be, walking through a crowded County Fair, and will feel this girl’s hand brush up against his. And then again. And by the third time he’ll reach out to hold the young lady’s hand, and a new sensation will run through him. Is it Iove?  Yeah.  But it’s  that same sense of belonging he had when he was a preschooler, now in a very crowded world, and now with a peer. She now belongs to him, or him to her–no matter, they are now boyfriend and girlfriend. In Spanish, it’s called “jalando” which means “tugging.” You can see where the thought came from. 

God wants us to feel that same thing with Him. I suppose the prior imagery is more appropriate than the second with God. God is not our peer, and we do refer to Him as Father. But it’s that sense of security–that you’re not alone, that you belong to someone and they to you, that brings a simultaneous smile and confidence in confronting the world. Holding a hand means that the support has doubled (in the case of a date,) but rather exponentially with God. That support brings comfort and security. And in the case of the little boy going home from preschool, a spring in his step. I suppose at the Fairgrounds, too. 

As Methodists, we are keenly aware that God is the one who reaches out first. Like the young girl in my illustration, God reaches out before we are aware of it. We reach out to a hand already opened wide. We just need to take it. The needs we have for that outstretched hand of God can be as varied as we are as humans. But the outstretched hand of God offers all the help we need. King David put it this way: You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11 (ESV) 

Smiling at the thought, 

Craig 

For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you,  
“do not fear; I will help you.”  Isaiah 41:13 (NIV) 

             If you go mountain biking, you are going to fall.  It’s just part of it.  Whether hitting roots or missing a landing or getting spooked by a seesaw, you’re going to fall.  When I took my boys riding, the inevitable scrapes and bruises I called “souvenirs,” partly to have them not be overcome by the injuries, but also to normalize the reality.  Whether that was a good thing or not, I don’t know; our younger son sure got some “souvenirs” a couple of years ago.  He lost 2 months of work for the privilege of displaying those.

Last week, it was my turn.  I was riding a mountain bike, but was riding primarily the El Rio Trail, when on the way back, I cut through the back of one of the parking lots at Boca Regional and tried to ram through a long hedge.  Some hedges, low to the ground, you can jump or push through.  Some may resist, but you can bend them.  This bamboo hedge wasn’t quite so compliant, however, and demanded that my right handlebar stay on one side of the hedge and let the other through.  This meant my bike went to the right, and I kept going straight, which sans bicycle, I (with Buzz Lightyear) would like to call it “falling with style” but truthfully it was an ugly example of what Woodie would have called just falling.  Last Sunday, some of you saw the scrapes on my hands as proof of the ugliness.

“Fall” and “ugliness” fit together.  Occasionally somebody will fall with some modicum of grace, but usually a fall ain’t pretty.  Maybe that’s why Christians call the sin that Adam and Eve first committed “the Fall.”  It was ugly.  And yes, like me on my fall, the linear trajectory was downward.  Shel Silverstein notwithstanding, all falls go down.  Adam and Eve’s sin lowered their standing, from a righteous conversational relationship with God to a disobedient distance.  From upstanding innocence to a guilty splat.  From living as eternal beings to the condemnation of being temporal ones.  It was definitely “the” fall, not just “a” fall like the one I took on my bike.

And not unlike the scrapes and bruises that I carry right now, they did not emerge unscathed from their fall.  The wounds of “by the sweat of thy brow,” and the pain of childbearing hurt, but nothing like the deep cut that now separated a perfect God from sinful human beings.

The cuts that I have on my hands and limbs are starting to scab — the first signs of healing.  At some point, one or two of them will not disappear completely, but will become scars, not painful, not a health concern, but a mark of how deep the cuts were.  For Adam and Eve’s fall, it would be a long time till Jesus came, received the bruises Himself, bringing for us the wonderful truth that St. Peter shared: “by His wounds we are healed.”  You and I, because of Jesus, can look at our own sins, our own mortality, and see them not as wounds anymore, but as scars, the healed-by-Jesus wounds that our own falls created.

Sin leaves scars.  A missionary once told me that sin is like a nail that is pounded into a tree.  You can take the nail out, the sin can be forgiven, but there will be a wound left in the tree.  That missionary used that illustration to encourage me to avoid sin altogether.  It was an effective illustration.  What I have learned about wounds becoming scars is that the reminder may stay, but with Jesus’ forgiveness, the scars don’t have to hurt.  We can just look at them and learn.

Which maybe I have to do about bike riding!

Back home,

Craig

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:8-9 (NIV)